CULTURE

2024
acrylic on canvas
50 x 76cm
This painting titled Culture depicts a yarning circle, and a feather veiled in a thick layer of smoke. The painting tells the story of 2024 NAIDOC week smoking ceremony that took place at my school, and on Yagura land. The smoking ceremony was done by Alec Doomadgee, and before it began, he asked me for permission to do the ceremony as I am a yagura woman. This was the beginning of my involvement in the ceremony. Before the ceremony, I marked each person in the yarning circle with red ochre and handed out eagle feathers, which I earlier learnt was Alec Doomadgee’s totem, and I am now using it as a symbol used in this painting to represent my experience.